1.
Ottawa
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Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, the two form the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area and the National Capital Region. The 2016 census reported a population of 934,243, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada, the City of Ottawa reported that the city had an estimated population of 960,754 as of December 2015. Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city name Ottawa was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River nearby, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning to trade. The city is the most educated in Canada, and is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, Ottawa also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment. It ranked second out of 150 worldwide in the Numbeo quality of life index 2014–2015, with the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago the Ottawa Valley became habitable. The area was used for wild harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel. The Ottawa river valley has archaeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, the area has three major rivers that meet, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. The Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning Great River or Grand River, Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, the early explorers and traders were later followed by many missionaries. The first maps of the area used the word Ottawa to name the river, philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create a community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City, the following year, the town would soon be named after British military engineer Colonel John By who was responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of todays Parliament Hill and he also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named Upper Town west of the canal and Lower Town east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically Upper Town was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas Lower Town was predominantly French, Irish, bytowns population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. In 1855 Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city, William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development. On New Years Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic, in reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock
2.
Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
3.
Conservation status
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The conservation status of a group of organisms indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct in the near future. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Also included are species that have gone extinct since 500 AD, when discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term threatened is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category, Data deficient – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction Not evaluated – Has not yet been evaluated against the criteria. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora aims to ensure that trade in specimens of wild animals. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES, in the European Union, the Birds and Habitats Directives are the legal instruments that evaluate the conservation status within the EU of species and habitats. NatureServe conservation status focuses on Latin America, United States, Canada, and it has been developed by scientists from NatureServe, The Nature Conservancy, and the network of natural heritage programs and data centers. It is increasingly integrated with the IUCN Red List system and its categories for species include, presumed extinct, possibly extinct, critically imperiled, imperiled, vulnerable, apparently secure, and secure. The system also allows ambiguous or uncertain ranks including inexact numeric ranks, NatureServe adds a qualifier for captive or cultivated only, which has a similar meaning to the IUCN Red List extinct in the wild status. The Red Data Book of the Russian Federation is used within the Russian Federation, in Australia, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 describes lists of threatened species, ecological communities and threatening processes. The categories resemble those of the 1994 IUCN Red List Categories & Criteria, prior to the EPBC Act, a simpler classification system was used by the Endangered Species Protection Act 1992. Some state and territory governments also have their own systems for conservation status, in Belgium, the Flemish Research Institute for Nature and Forest publishes an online set of more than 150 nature indicators in Dutch. In Canada, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is a group of experts that assesses and designates which wild species are in danger of disappearing from Canada. Under the Species at Risk Act, it is up to the federal government, in China, the State, provinces and some counties have determined their key protected wildlife species. There is the China red data book, in Finland, a large number of species are protected under the Nature Conservation Act, and through the EU Habitats Directive and EU Birds Directive. In Germany, the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation publishes red lists of endangered species, india has the Wild Life Protection Act,1972, Amended 2003 and the Biological Diversity Act,2002. In Japan, the Ministry of Environment publishes a Threatened Wildlife of Japan Red Data Book, in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality publishes a list of threatened species, and conservation is enforced by the Nature Conservation Act 1998. Species are also protected through the Wild Birds and Habitats Directives, in New Zealand, the Department of Conservation publishes the New Zealand Threat Classification System lists
4.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
5.
Plant
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. The term is generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae. This includes the plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants have cell walls containing cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts and their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although reproduction is also common. There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, green plants provide most of the worlds molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earths ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankinds basic foodstuffs, Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in variety, they have served as the source of most medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology, Plants are one of the two groups into which all living things were traditionally divided, the other is animals. The division goes back at least as far as Aristotle, who distinguished between plants, which generally do not move, and animals, which often are mobile to catch their food. Much later, when Linnaeus created the basis of the system of scientific classification. Since then, it has become clear that the plant kingdom as originally defined included several unrelated groups, however, these organisms are still often considered plants, particularly in popular contexts. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a group of organisms or taxon. The evolutionary history of plants is not yet settled. Those which have been called plants are in bold, the way in which the groups of green algae are combined and named varies considerably between authors. Algae comprise several different groups of organisms which produce energy through photosynthesis, most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble land plants, but are classified among the brown, red and green algae. Each of these groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms
6.
Flowering plant
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The flowering plants, also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 416 families, approx. 13,164 known genera and a total of c.295,383 known species, etymologically, angiosperm means a plant that produces seeds within an enclosure, in other words, a fruiting plant. The term angiosperm comes from the Greek composite word meaning enclosed seeds, the ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, during the range 245 to 202 million years ago, and the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya. They diversified extensively during the Lower Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table. These distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants, the amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms. The vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the xylem and phloem form concentric rings, in the dicotyledons, the bundles in the very young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium, the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They contain no cambium and once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases, the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, and provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species, the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally on a shoot or from the axil of a leaf, occasionally, as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. There are two kinds of cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which divide to become pollen grains, are the male cells and are borne in the stamens. The female cells called megaspores, which divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule. The flower may consist only of parts, as in willow. Usually, other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls, the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as sepals and petals. The outer series is usually green and leaf-like, and functions to protect the rest of the flower, the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, and is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract insect or bird pollinators, attraction is effected by color, scent, and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower
7.
Eudicots
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The eudicots, Eudicotidae or eudicotyledons are a monophyletic clade of flowering plants that had been called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dicots by previous authors. The close relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains was initially seen in studies of shared derived characters. These plants have a trait in their pollen grains of exhibiting three colpi or grooves paralleling the polar axis. Later molecular evidence confirmed the basis for the evolutionary relationships among flowering plants with tricolpate pollen grains. The term means true dicotyledons, as it contains the majority of plants that have been considered dicots and have characteristics of the dicots, the term eudicots has subsequently been widely adopted in botany to refer to one of the two largest clades of angiosperms, monocots being the other. The remaining angiosperms are sometimes referred to as basal angiosperms or paleodicots, the other name for the eudicots is tricolpates, a name which refers to the grooved structure of the pollen. Members of the group have tricolpate pollen, or forms derived from it and these pollens have three or more pores set in furrows called colpi. In contrast, most of the seed plants produce monosulcate pollen. The name tricolpates is preferred by some botanists to avoid confusion with the dicots, numerous familiar plants are eudicots, including many common food plants, trees, and ornamentals. Most leafy trees of midlatitudes also belong to eudicots, with exceptions being magnolias and tulip trees which belong to magnoliids, and Ginkgo biloba. The name eudicots is used in the APG system, of 1998 and it is applied to a clade, a monophyletic group, which includes most of the dicots. The eudicots can be divided into two groups, the basal eudicots and the core eudicots, basal eudicot is an informal name for a paraphyletic group. The core eudicots are a monophyletic group, a 2010 study suggested the core eudicots can be divided into two clades, Gunnerales and a clade called Pentapetalae, comprising all the remaining core eudicots
8.
Rosids
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The rosids are members of a large clade of flowering plants, containing about 70,000 species, more than a quarter of all angiosperms. The clade is divided into 16 to 20 orders, depending upon circumscription and classification and these orders, in turn, together comprise about 140 families. Fossil rosids are known from the Cretaceous period, molecular clock estimates indicate that the rosids originated in the Aptian or Albian stages of the Cretaceous, between 125 and 99.6 million years ago. The name is based upon the name Rosidae, which had usually been understood to be a subclass, in 1967, Armen Takhtajan showed that the correct basis for the name Rosidae is a description of a group of plants published in 1830 by Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling. The clade was later renamed Rosidae and has been variously delimited by different authors, the name rosids is informal and not assumed to have any particular taxonomic rank like the names authorized by the ICBN. The rosids are monophyletic based upon evidence found by molecular phylogenetic analysis, three different definitions of the rosids were used. Some authors included the orders Saxifragales and Vitales in the rosids, others excluded both of these orders. The circumscription used in this article is that of the APG IV classification, which includes Vitales, the rosids and Saxifragales form the superrosids clade. This is one of three groups compose the Pentapetalae, the others being Dilleniales and the superasterids. The rosids consist of two groups, the order Vitales and the eurosids, the eurosids, in turn, are divided into two groups, fabids and malvids. The rosids consist of 17 orders, in addition to Vitales, there are 8 orders in fabids and 8 orders in malvids. Some of the orders have only recently been recognized and these are Vitales, Zygophyllales, Crossosomatales, Picramniales, and Huerteales. The phylogeny of Rosids shown below is adapted from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group website, the nitrogen-fixing clade contains a high number of actinorhizal plants. Not all plants in this clade are actinorhizal, however, media related to Rosids at Wikimedia Commons
9.
Anacardiaceae
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The Anacardiaceae, commonly known as Cashew family, are a family of flowering plants commonly known as the cashew or sumac family, including about 83 genera with about 860 known species. Members of the Anacardiaceae bear fruits that are drupes and in some cases produce urushiol, the Anacardiaceae include numerous genera, several of which are economically important, notably cashew, mango, poison ivy, sumac, smoke tree, marula, yellow mombin, and cuachalalate. The genus Pistacia is now included, but was placed in its own family. Trees or shrubs, each has inconspicuous flowers and highly poisonous, tannin sacs are also widespread among the family. The simple pits are located along the wall and in contact with the parenchyma. Leaves are deciduous or evergreen, usually alternate, estipulate and imparipinnate, usually with opposite leaflets, secondary venation is eucamptodromous, brochidodromous, craspedodromous or cladodromous Cladodromous venation, if present is considered diagnostic for Anacardiaceae. Flowers grow at the end of a branch or stem or at an angle from where the leaf joins the stem and have bracts. Often with this family, bisexual and male flowers occur on some plants, a calyx with three to seven cleft sepals and the same number of petals, occasionally no petals, overlap each other in the bud. Stamens are twice as many or equal to the number of petals, inserted at the base of the ring or cup-shaped disk. Stamen stalks are separate, and anthers are able to move, Flowers have the ovary free, but the petals and stamen are borne on the calyx. In the stamenate flowers, ovaries are single-celled, in the pistillate flowers, ovaries are single or sometimes quadri- or quinticelled. One to three styles and one ovule occur in each cavity, fruits rarely open at maturity and are most often drupes. Seed coats are very thin or are crust-like, little or no endosperm is present. Seeds are solitary with no albumen around the embryo, in 1759, Bernard de Jussieu arranged the plants in the royal garden of the Trianon at Versailles, according to his own scheme. That classification included a description of an order called the Terebintaceæ which contained a suborder that included Cassuvium, Anacardium, Mangifera, Connarus, Rhus, in 1789, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, nephew of Bernard de Jussieu, published that classification scheme. The name and genera were based on the order with the name that had been described by Bernard de Jussieu in 1759. The herbarium from that expedition contained only one genus from the family, john Lindley described the Essential character of the Anacardiaceæ, the Cashew Tribe in 1831, adopting the order that was described by Jussieu, but abandoning the name Terebintaceæ. He includes the genera which were found in de Candolles Anacardieæ and Sumachineæ, Anacardium, Holigarna, Mangifera, Rhus and Mauria
10.
Toxicodendron
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Toxicodendron diversilobum, commonly named Pacific poison oak or western poison oak, is a woody vine or shrub in the Anacardiaceae family. It is widely distributed in western North America, inhabiting conifer and mixed forests, woodlands, grasslands. Like other members of the Toxicodendron genus, T. diversilobum causes itching, Toxicodendron diversilobum is found in California, the Baja California Peninsula, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. The related T. pubescens is native to the Southeastern United States, T. diversilobum and T. rydbergii hybridize in the Columbia River Gorge area. Toxicodendron diversilobum is common in habitats, from mesic riparian zones to xeric chaparral. It thrives in shady and dappled light through full and direct sunlight conditions, the vining form can climb up large shrub and tree trunks into their canopies. Sometimes it kills the plant by smothering or breaking it. Toxicodendron diversilobum is extremely variable in habit and leaf appearance. The plant is deciduous, so that after cold weather sets in. Without leaves the stems may sometimes be identified by occasional black marks where its milky sap may have oozed and dried, the leaves are divided into three leaflets,3.5 to 10 centimetres long, with scalloped, toothed, or lobed edges. They generally resemble the leaves of a true oak, though tend to be more glossy. Leaves are typically bronze when first unfolding in February to March, bright green in the spring, yellow-green to reddish in the summer, white flowers form in the spring, from March to June. If they are fertilized, they develop into greenish-white or tan berries, botanist John Howell observed that the toxicity of T. Toxicodendron diversilobum leaves and twigs have a surface oil, urushiol, which causes an allergic reaction. It causes contact dermatitis – an immune-mediated skin inflammation – in four-fifths of humans, however, most, if not all, will become sensitized over time with repeated or more concentrated exposure to urushiol. The active components of urushiol have been determined to be unsaturated congeners of 3-heptadecylcatechol with up to three double bonds in an unbranched C17 side chain, in poison ivy, these components are unique in that they contain a -CH2CH2- group in an unbranched alkyl side chain. Toxicodendron diversilobum skin contact first causes itching, then evolves into dermatitis with inflammation, colorless bumps, severe itching, in the dormant deciduous seasons the plant can be difficult to recognize, however leafless branches and twigs contact also causes allergic reactions. Urushiol volatilizes when burned, and human exposure to T. diversilobum smoke is extremely hazardous, from wildfires, controlled burns, the smoke can poison people who thought they were immune. Branches used to toast food over campfires can cause reactions internally and externally, urushiol is also found in the skin of mangos, posing a danger to people already sensitized to T. diversilobum when eating the fruit while it is still in the rind
11.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
12.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
13.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
14.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
15.
Urushiol
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Urushiol /ʊˈruːʃi. ɒl/ is an oily organic allergen found in plants of the family Anacardiaceae, especially Toxicodendron spp. and also in parts of the mango tree. In most individuals, urushiol causes an allergic rash on contact. The name urushiol is derived from the Japanese word for the lacquer tree, urushiol is a pale-yellow liquid with a specific gravity of 0.968 and a boiling point of 200 °C. It is soluble in alcohol, ether, and benzene, urushiol is a mixture of several closely related organic compounds. Each consists of a catechol substituted with a chain that has 15 or 17 carbon atoms. The alkyl group may be saturated or unsaturated, the exact composition of the mixture varies, depending on the plant source. Whereas western poison oak urushiol contains chiefly catechols with C17 side-chains, poison ivy, the likelihood and severity of allergic reaction to urushiol is dependent on the degree of unsaturation of the alkyl chain. Less than half of the general experience an reaction with the saturated urushiol alone. Longer side chains tend to produce a stronger reaction, before the urushiol has been absorbed by the skin, it can be removed with soap and water. However, time is of the essence, as 50% of the urushiol can be absorbed within 10 minutes, once urushiol has penetrated into the skin, attempting to remove it with water is ineffective. After absorption into the skin it is recognized by the immune systems dendritic cells, dermatitis is mediated by an induced immune response. Urushiol acts as a hapten, leading to a Type IV hypersensitive reaction, anti-itch drugs, for treating the toxin. Bentoquatam, a barrier creme applied before exposure, burows solution which can treat the symptoms of the rash caused by urushiol. Ginkgo biloba and cashew, plants containing chemicals closely related to urushiol, hapten, small molecules that can elicit an immune response under certain conditions. Mango trees, which may cause cross reaction allergies with urushiol
16.
Sap
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Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant, sap is not to be confused with latex, resin or cell sap, it is a separate substance, separately produced, and with different components and functions. Saps may be divided into two types, xylem sap and phloem sap. Xylem sap consists primarily of a solution of hormones, mineral elements. Transport of sap in xylem is characterized by movement from the roots toward the leaves, xylem sap transport can be disrupted by cavitation—an abrupt phase change from liquid to vapor—resulting in air-filled xylem conduits. Phloem sap consists primarily of sugars, hormones, and mineral elements dissolved in water and it flows from where carbohydrates are produced or stored to where they are used. The pressure flow hypothesis proposes a mechanism for phloem sap transport, although other hypotheses have been proposed. Phloem sap is also thought to play a role in sending informational signals throughout vascular plants, loading and unloading patterns are largely determined by the conductivity and number of plasmodesmata and the position-dependent function of solute-specific, plasma membrane transport proteins. Recent evidence indicates that proteins and RNA are part of the plants long-distance communication signaling system. Evidence also exists for the transport and sorting of macromolecules as they pass through plasmodesmata. A large number of insects of the order Hemiptera, feed directly on phloem sap, a much larger set of animals do however consume phloem sap by proxy, either through feeding on the honeydew of phloem-feeding hemipterans. Maple syrup is made from reduced sugar maple sap, the sap often is harvested from the Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum. In some countries harvesting the early spring sap of trees for human consumption is common practice. Preparations made from the sap of Aloe vera are widely used for their purported soothing, moisturizing, Aloe vera gel is also used as an ingredient in commercially available lotions, yogurt, beverages, and some desserts. Note, however, that so-called aloe products such as aloes and they are largely distinct substances, different from each other and different from the true phloem and cellular saps. They also are produced in different cellular structures, much as other materials such as latex. Certain palm tree sap can be used to make palm syrup, in the Canary Islands they use the Canary Island Date Palm while in Chile they use the Chilean Wine Palm to make their syrup called miel de palma
17.
Hedera
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The flowers are greenish-yellow with five small petals, they are produced in umbels in autumn to early winter and are very rich in nectar. The fruit is a greenish-black, dark purple or yellow berry 5–10 mm diameter with one to five seeds, the seeds are dispersed by birds which eat the berries. The species differ in detail of the shape and size and in the structure of the leaf trichomes, and also in the size and, to a lesser extent. The chromosome number also differs between species, the basic diploid number is 48, while some are tetraploid with 96, and others hexaploid with 144 and octaploid with 192 chromosomes. Ivies are natives of Eurasia and North Africa but have introduced to North America. They invade disturbed forest areas in North America and in Europe, ivy seeds are spread by birds. Ivies are of ecological importance for their nectar and fruit production. The ivy bee Colletes hederae is completely dependent on ivy flowers, the fruit are eaten by a range of birds, including thrushes, blackcaps, and woodpigeons. Hedera colchica K. Koch – Persian ivy, Hedera cypria McAllister – Cyprus ivy. Cyprus Hedera iberica Ackerfield & J. Wen – Iberian ivy, Hedera maroccana McAllister – Moroccan ivy. Hedera nepalensis K. Koch – Himalayan ivy, Hedera pastuchovii G. Woronow – Pastuchovs ivy. Hedera rhombea Siebold ex Bean – Japanese ivy, trichomes stellate Hedera azorica Carrière – Azores ivy. Hedera hibernica Bean – Atlantic ivy, the species of ivy are largely allopatric and closely related, and many have on occasion been treated as varieties or subspecies of H. helix, the first species described. Several additional species have been described in the parts of the former Soviet Union. The only verified hybrid involving ivies is the intergeneric hybrid × Fatshedera lizei and this hybrid was produced once in a garden in France in 1910 and never successfully repeated, the hybrid being maintained in cultivation by vegetative propagation. Despite the close relationship between Hedera helix and H. hibernica, no hybrids between them have yet been found, hybridisation may however have played a part in the evolution of some species in the genus. Numerous cultivars with variegated foliage and/or unusual leaf shapes have been selected for horticultural use, much discussion has involved whether or not ivy climbing trees will harm them. In Europe, the harm is generally minor although there can be competition for nutrients, light, and water
18.
Cashew
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The cashew tree is a tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew nut and the cashew apple. It can grow as high as 14 m, but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 m, has proved profitable, with earlier maturity. The cashew nut, often called a cashew, is widely consumed. It is eaten on its own, used in recipes, or processed into cashew cheese or cashew butter, the shell of the cashew seed yields derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to paints. The cashew apple is a reddish to yellow fruit, whose pulp can be processed into a sweet. The species is native to northeastern Brazil. Major production of cashews occurs in Vietnam, Nigeria, India and its English name derives from the Portuguese name for the fruit of the cashew tree caju, which itself is derived from the Tupian word acajú, literally meaning nut that produces itself. The generic name Anacardium, originally from the Greek, refers to the location of the seed outside the core or heart of the fruit. A mid-seventeenth century ethnographic painting by Albert Eckhout, who accompanied Dutch governor-general Johan Maurits, the cashew tree is large and evergreen, growing to 14 m tall, with a short, often irregularly shaped trunk. The leaves are arranged, leathery textured, elliptic to obovate, 4–22 cm long and 2–15 cm broad. The flowers are produced in a panicle or corymb up to 26 cm long, each flower is small, pale green at first, then turning reddish, with five slender, acute petals 7–15 mm long. The largest cashew tree in the covers a area around 7,500 m2, it is located in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. The fruit of the tree is an accessory fruit. What appears to be the fruit is an oval or pear-shaped structure, a hypocarpium, that develops from the pedicel, called the cashew apple, better known in Central America as marañón, it ripens into a yellow and/or red structure about 5–11 cm long. It is edible, and has a sweet smell and a sweet taste. The pulp of the apple is very juicy, but the skin is fragile. The true fruit of the tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple. The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become the cashew apple, within the true fruit is a single seed, which is often considered a nut, in the culinary sense
19.
Pistachio
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The pistachio, a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are consumed as food. Pistacia vera often is confused with species in the genus Pistacia that are also known as pistachio. These other species can be distinguished by their distributions and their seeds which are much smaller and have a soft shell. Archaeology shows that pistachio seeds were a food as early as 6750 BC. The early sixth-century manuscript De observatione ciborum by Anthimus implies that pistacia remained well known in Europe in Late Antiquity, archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo in northeastern Iraq for the consumption of Atlantic pistachio. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were said to have contained pistachio trees during the reign of King Merodach-Baladan about 700 BC, the modern pistachio P. vera was first cultivated in Bronze Age Central Asia, where the earliest example is from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan. It appears in Dioscurides as pistakia πιστάκια, recognizable as P. vera by its comparison to pine nuts. David Fairchild of the United States Department of Agriculture introduced hardier cultivars collected in China to California in 1904 and 1905, walter T. Swingle’s pistachios from Syria had already fruited well at Niles, California, by 1917. The earliest records of pistachio in English are around roughly year 1400, with the spellings pistace, later in Persian, the word is attested as pesteh. As mentioned, the tree came to the ancient Greeks from Western Asia, Pistachio is a desert plant, and is highly tolerant of saline soil. It has been reported to grow well when irrigated with water having 3, Pistachio trees are fairly hardy in the right conditions, and can survive temperatures ranging between −10 °C in winter and 48 °C in summer. They need a sunny position and well-drained soil, Pistachio trees do poorly in conditions of high humidity, and are susceptible to root rot in winter if they get too much water and the soil is not sufficiently free-draining. Long, hot summers are required for proper ripening of the fruit and they have been known to thrive in warm, moist environments. The bush grows up to 10 m tall and it has deciduous pinnate leaves 10–20 centimeters long. The plants are dioecious, with male and female trees. The flowers are apetalous and unisexual, and borne in panicles, the fruit is a drupe, containing an elongated seed, which is the edible portion. The seed, commonly thought of as a nut, is a culinary nut, the fruit has a hard, creamish exterior shell
20.
Weed
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A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, a plant in the wrong place. Examples commonly are plants unwanted in human-controlled settings, such as fields, gardens, lawns. Many plants that people widely regard as weeds also are grown in gardens and other cultivated settings. The term weed also is applied to any plant that grows or reproduces aggressively, Weed control is important in agriculture. Methods include hand cultivation with hoes, powered cultivation with cultivators, smothering with mulch, lethal wilting with high heat, burning, certain classes of weeds share adaptations to ruderal environments. The nature of the habitat and its disturbances will affect or even determine which types of weed communities become dominant. In contrast, perennial weeds often have underground stems that spread under the surface or, like ground ivy, have creeping stems that root. In locations where predation and mutually competitive relationships are absent, weeds have increased resources available for growth and these chemicals may limit the growth of established plants or the germination and growth of seeds and seedlings. A number of native or non-native plants are unwanted in a location for a number of reasons. An important one is that they interfere with food and fiber production in agriculture, other important reasons are that they interfere with other cosmetic, decorative, or recreational goals, such as in lawns, landscape architecture, playing fields, and golf courses. Similarly, they can be of concern for environmental reasons whereby introduced species out-compete for resources or space with desired endemic plants, in weed ecology some authorities speak of the relationship between the three Ps, plant, place, perception. These have been variously defined, but the weed traits listed by H. G. Baker are widely cited. Weeds have long been a concern, perhaps as long as humans have cultivated plants, and the Bible, Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, While the term weed generally has a negative connotation, many plants known as weeds can have beneficial properties. A number of weeds, such as the dandelion and lambs quarter, are edible, burdock is common over much of the world, and is sometimes used to make soup and medicine in East Asia. Some weeds attract beneficial insects, which in turn can protect crops from harmful pests, Weeds can also prevent pest insects from finding a crop, because their presence disrupts the incidence of positive cues which pests use to locate their food. Weeds may also act as a mulch, providing ground cover that reduces moisture loss
21.
Vine
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A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine, but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent stems, lianas or runners. The word also can refer to such stems or runners themselves, in the United Kingdom, the term vine applies almost exclusively to the grapevine. The term climber is used for all climbing plants, certain plants always grow as vines, while a few grow as vines only part of the time. For instance, poison ivy and bittersweet can grow as low shrubs when support is not available, a vine displays a growth form based on long stems. This has been a successful growth form for plants such as kudzu and Japanese honeysuckle. There are some tropical vines that develop skototropism, and grow away from the light, growth away from light allows the vine to reach a tree trunk, which it can then climb to brighter regions. The vine growth form may also enable plants to large areas quickly. This is the case with periwinkle and ground ivy and it is also an adaptation to life in areas where small patches of fertile soil are adjacent to exposed areas with more sunlight but little or no soil. A vine can root in the soil but have most of its leaves in the brighter, exposed area, the evolution of a climbing habit has been implicated as a key innovation associated with the evolutionary success and diversification of a number of taxonomic groups of plants. It has evolved independently in several plant families, using many different climbing methods such as and it directs its stem into a crevice in the bark of fibrous barked trees where the stem adopts a flattened profile and grows up the tree underneath the host trees outer bark. The fetterbush then sends out branches that emerge near the top of the tree and these may be divided into woody vines or lianas, such as wisteria, kiwifruit, and common ivy, and herbaceous vines, such as morning glory. One odd group of vining plants is the fern genus Lygodium, the stem does not climb, but rather the fronds do. The fronds unroll from the tip, and theoretically never stop growing, they can form thickets as they unroll over other plants, rockfaces, gardeners can use the tendency of climbing plants to grow quickly. If a plant display is wanted quickly, a climber can achieve this, climbers can be trained over walls, pergolas, fences, etc. Climbers can be grown over other plants to provide additional attraction, artificial support can also be provided. Some climbers climb by themselves, others need work, such as tying them in, vines widely differ in size, form and evolutionary origin. Darwin classified climbing groups based on their climbing method and he classified five classes of vines including twining plants, leaf climbers, tendril bearers, root climbers and hook climbers. Vines are unique in that they have multiple origins and a wide range of phenotypic plasticity
22.
Tree
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In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk. In looser senses, the palms, the tree ferns, bananas. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old, the tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years and it is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk and this trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier, below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely, they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the trees growth. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones, others, such as tree ferns, trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues, trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of available for agriculture. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always revered, with sacred groves in various cultures. Although tree is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the form of an elongated stem, or trunk. Trees are also defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs
23.
Shrub
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A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized woody plant. It is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, plants of many species may grow either into shrubs or trees, depending on their growing conditions. Small, low shrubs, generally less than 2 m tall, such as lavender, periwinkle, an area of cultivated shrubs in a park or a garden is known as a shrubbery. When clipped as topiary, suitable species or varieties of shrubs develop dense foliage, many shrubs respond well to renewal pruning, in which hard cutting back to a stool results in long new stems known as canes. Other shrubs respond better to selective pruning to reveal their structure, shrubs in common garden practice are generally considered broad-leaved plants, though some smaller conifers such as mountain pine and common juniper are also shrubby in structure. Species that grow into a shrubby habit may be deciduous or evergreen
24.
Deciduous
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In a more general sense, deciduous means the dropping of a part that is no longer needed or falling away after its purpose is finished. In plants it is the result of natural processes, in botany and horticulture, deciduous plants, including trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. In some cases leaf loss coincides with winter—namely in temperate or polar climates, in other parts of the world, including tropical, subtropical, and arid regions, plants lose their leaves during the dry season or other seasons, depending on variations in rainfall. The converse of deciduous is coniferous, where foliage is shed on a different schedule from deciduous trees, plants that are intermediate may be called semi-deciduous, they lose old foliage as new growth begins. Other plants are semi-evergreen and lose their leaves before the growing season. Many deciduous plants flower during the period when they are leafless, the absence of leaves improves wind transmission of pollen for wind-pollinated plants and increases the visibility of the flowers to insects in insect-pollinated plants. This strategy is not without risks, as the flowers can be damaged by frost or, in dry season regions, leaf drop or abscission involves complex physiological signals and changes within plants. The process of photosynthesis steadily degrades the supply of chlorophylls in foliage, the brightest leaf colors are produced when days grow short and nights are cool, but remain above freezing. These other pigments include carotenoids that are yellow, brown, anthocyanin pigments produce red and purple colors, though they are not always present in the leaves. Rather, they are produced in the foliage in late summer, parts of the world that have showy displays of bright autumn colors are limited to locations where days become short and nights are cool. In other parts of the world, the leaves of deciduous trees simply fall off without turning the bright colors produced from the accumulation of anthocyanin pigments, the beginnings of leaf drop starts when an abscission layer is formed between the leaf petiole and the stem. This layer is formed in the spring during active new growth of the leaf, the cells are sensitive to a plant hormone called auxin that is produced by the leaf and other parts of the plant. The elongation of cells break the connection between the different cell layers, allowing the leaf to break away from the plant. It also forms a layer that seals the break, so the plant does not lose sap, in the spring, these proteins are used as a nitrogen source during the growth of new leaves or flowers. Plants with deciduous foliage have advantages and disadvantages compared to plants with evergreen foliage, evergreens suffer greater water loss during the winter and they also can experience greater predation pressure, especially when small. Losing leaves in winter may reduce damage from insects, repairing leaves, removing leaves also reduces cavitation which can damage xylem vessels in plants. This then allows deciduous plants to have xylem vessels with larger diameters, the deciduous characteristic has developed repeatedly among woody plants. Trees include maple, many oaks and nothofagus, elm, aspen, Deciduous shrubs include honeysuckle, viburnum, and many others
25.
Leaves
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
26.
Glossary of leaf morphology
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The following is a defined list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple or compound, the edge of the leaf may be regular or irregular, may be smooth or bearing hair, bristles or spines. For more terms describing other aspects of leaves besides their overall morphology see the leaf article, leaves of most plants include a flat structure called the blade or lamina, but not all leaves are flat, some are cylindrical. Leaves may be simple, with a leaf blade, or compound. In flowering plants, as well as the blade of the leaf, there may be a petiole and stipules, leaf structure is described by several terms that include, Being one of the more visible features, leaf shape is commonly used for plant identification. Edge and margin are both interchangeable in the sense that they refer to the perimeter of a leaf. Leaves may also be folded or rolled in various ways, the folding of leaves within a bud is vernation, ptyxis is the folding of an individual leaf in a bud
27.
Almond
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The almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree, within the genus Prunus, it is classified with the peach in the subgenus Amygdalus, distinguished from the other subgenera by corrugations on the shell surrounding the seed. The fruit of the almond is a drupe, consisting of a hull and a hard shell with the seed. Shelling almonds refers to removing the shell to reveal the seed, almonds are sold shelled or unshelled. Blanched almonds are shelled almonds that have been treated with hot water to soften the seedcoat, the almond is a deciduous tree, growing 4–10 m in height, with a trunk of up to 30 cm in diameter. The young twigs are green at first, becoming purplish where exposed to sunlight, the leaves are 3–5 inches long, with a serrated margin and a 2.5 cm petiole. The flowers are white to pink, 3–5 cm diameter with five petals, produced singly or in pairs. Almond grows best in Mediterranean climates with warm, dry summers and mild, the optimal temperature for their growth is between 15 and 30 °C and the tree buds have a chilling requirement of 300 to 600 hours below 7.2 °C to break dormancy. Almonds begin bearing an economic crop in the year after planting. Trees reach full bearing five to six years after planting, the fruit matures in the autumn, 7–8 months after flowering. The almond fruit measures 3. 5–6 cm long, in botanical terms, it is not a nut but a drupe. The outer covering or exocarp, fleshy in other members of Prunus such as the plum and cherry, is instead a thick, leathery, grey-green coat, inside the hull is a reticulated, hard, woody shell called the endocarp. Inside the shell is the seed, commonly called a nut. Generally, one seed is present, but occasionally two occur, the almond is native to the Mediterranean climate region of the Middle East, eastward as far as the Yamuna River in India. The wild form of domesticated almond grows in parts of the Levant, the fruit of the wild forms contains the glycoside amygdalin, which becomes transformed into deadly prussic acid after crushing, chewing, or any other injury to the seed. Selection of the type from the many bitter types in the wild marked the beginning of almond domestication. It is unclear as to which wild ancestor of the created the domesticated species. Zohary and Hopf believe that almonds were one of the earliest domesticated fruit trees due to the ability of the grower to raise attractive almonds from seed
28.
Leaflet (botany)
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A leaflet in botany is a leaf-like part of a compound leaf. Though it resembles a leaf, a leaflet is not borne on a main plant stem or branch, as a leaf is. Compound leaves are common in many plant families and they differ widely in morphology, the two main classes of compound leaf morphology are palmate and pinnate. For example, a plant has palmate compound leaves, whereas some species of Acacia have pinnate leaves. The ultimate free division of a leaf, or a pinnate subdivision of a multipinnate leaf is called a pinnule or pinnula
29.
Autumn
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Autumn, also known as fall in North American English, is one of the four temperate seasons. One of its features is the shedding of leaves from deciduous trees. Some cultures regard the autumnal equinox as mid-autumn, while others with a longer temperature lag treat it as the start of autumn. Meteorologists use a definition based on months, with autumn being September, October and November in the northern hemisphere, in North America, autumn is usually considered to start with the September equinox and end with the winter solstice. As daytime and nighttime temperatures decrease, trees shed their leaves, in traditional East Asian solar term, autumn starts on or around 8 August and ends on or about 7 November. In Ireland, the autumn months according to the meteorological service. In Australia and New Zealand, autumn officially begins on 1 March, the word autumn comes from the ancient Etruscan root autu- and has within it connotations of the passing of the year. It was borrowed by the neighbouring Romans, and became the Latin word autumnus, after the Roman era, the word continued to be used as the Old French word autompne or autumpne in Middle English, and was later normalized to the original Latin. In the Medieval period, there are examples of its use as early as the 12th century. Before the 16th century, harvest was the usually used to refer to the season. The alternative word fall for the season traces its origins to old Germanic languages, the exact derivation is unclear, with the Old English fiæll or feallan and the Old Norse fall all being possible candidates. However, these all have the meaning to fall from a height and are clearly derived either from a common root or from each other. The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, during the 17th century, English emigration to the British colonies in North America was at its peak, and the new settlers took the English language with them. While the term gradually became obsolete in Britain, it became the more common term in North America. The name backend, a common name for the season in Northern England, has today been largely replaced by the name autumn. Association with the transition from warm to cold weather, and its status as the season of the primary harvest, has dominated its themes. In Western cultures, personifications of autumn are usually pretty, well-fed females adorned with fruits, vegetables, many cultures feature autumnal harvest festivals, often the most important on their calendars. There are also the many North American Indian festivals tied to harvest of ripe foods gathered in the wild, the Chinese Mid-Autumn or Moon festival, and many others
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Leaf
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A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant and is the principal lateral appendage of the stem. The leaves and stem together form the shoot, Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in autumn foliage. Although leaves can be seen in different shapes, sizes and textures, typically a leaf is a thin, dorsiventrally flattened organ, borne above ground. Most leaves have distinctive upper surface and lower surface that differ in colour, hairiness, broad, flat leaves with complex venation are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In others, such as the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, some leaves, such as bulb scales are not above ground, and in many aquatic species the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls, furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from both in their structure and origin. Many structures of plants, such as the phyllids of mosses and liverworts and even of some foliose lichens. Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants and these are then further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls. The plant must therefore bring these three together in the leaf for photosynthesis to take place. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch to form veins which supply as much as the leaf as possible and they are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows, the flat, or laminar, shape also maximises thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to photosynthesis the leaf is the site of transpiration and guttation. Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and these are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes. and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides
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Root
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In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. Roots can also be aerial or aerating, that is growing up above the ground or especially above water, furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either. Therefore, the root is best defined as the non-leaf, non-nodes bearing parts of the plants body, however, important internal structural differences between stems and roots exist. The fossil record of roots – or rather, infilled voids where roots rotted after death – spans back to the late Silurian and their identification is difficult, because casts and molds of roots are so similar in appearance to animal burrows. They can be discriminated using a range of features, the first root that comes from a plant is called the radicle. In response to the concentration of nutrients, roots also synthesise cytokinin, Roots often function in storage of food and nutrients. The roots of most vascular plant species enter into symbiosis with fungi to form mycorrhizae. In its simplest form, the root architecture refers to the spatial configuration of a plant’s root system. This system can be complex and is dependent upon multiple factors such as the species of the plant itself, the composition of the soil. The configuration of root systems serves to support the plant, compete with other plants. Roots grow to specific conditions, which, if changed, can impede a plants growth. For example, a system that has developed in dry soil may not be as efficient in flooded soil, yet plants are able to adapt to other changes in the environment. Root architecture plays the important role of providing a supply of nutrients and water as well as anchorage. The main terms used to classify the architecture of a system are, Branch magnitude. Root angle, the angle of a lateral root’s base around the parent root’s circumference, the angle of a lateral root from its parent root. Link radius, the diameter of a root, all components of the root architecture are regulated through a complex interaction between genetic responses and responses due to environmental stimuli. These developmental stimuli are categorised as intrinsic, the genetic and nutritional influences, or extrinsic, the main hormones and respective pathways responsible for root architecture development include, Auxin – Auxin promotes root initiation, root emergence and primary root elongation. Cytokinins – Cytokinins regulate root apical meristem size and promote lateral root elongation, gibberellins – Together with ethylene they promote crown primordia growth and elongation
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Rhizome
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In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a modified subterranean stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks and rootstocks, Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and are diageotropic or grow perpendicular to the force of gravity. The rhizome also retains the ability to new shoots to grow upwards. If a rhizome is separated into pieces, each piece may be able to rise to a new plant. The plant uses the rhizome to store starches, proteins, and these nutrients become useful for the plant when new shoots must be formed or when the plant dies back for the winter. This is a known as vegetative reproduction and is used by farmers and gardeners to propagate certain plants. This also allows for lateral spread of grasses like bamboo and bunch grasses, examples of plants that are propagated this way include hops, asparagus, ginger, irises, Lily of the Valley, cannas, and sympodial orchids. Some rhizomes which are used directly in cooking include ginger, turmeric, galangal, stored rhizomes are subject to bacterial and fungal infections, making them unsuitable for replanting and greatly diminishing stocks. However, rhizomes can also be produced artificially from tissue cultures, the ability to easily grow rhizomes from tissue cultures leads to better stocks for replanting and greater yields. The plant hormones ethylene and jasmonic acid have found to help induce and regulate the growth of rhizomes. Ethylene that was applied externally was found to affect internal ethylene levels, knowledge of how to use these hormones to induce rhizome growth could help farmers and biologists producing plants grown from rhizomes more easily cultivate and grow better plants. The poplars are an example of trees that propagate using a rhizome, the Pando colony in Utah is a famous example, which has been living for about 80,000 years. In general, rhizomes have short internodes, they send out roots from the bottom of the nodes, a stem tuber is a thickened part of a rhizome or stolon that has been enlarged for use as a storage organ. In general, a tuber is high in starch, for example, the common potato, the term tuber is often used imprecisely, and is sometimes applied to plants with rhizomes. Some plants have rhizomes that grow above ground or that lie at the surface, including some Iris species. Rhizomes generally form a layer, but in Giant Horsetails. Many rhizomes have culinary value, and some, such as zheergen, are consumed raw. Aspen Corm Mycorrhiza Media related to Rhizomes at Wikimedia Commons
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Vegetative reproduction
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Vegetative reproduction is a form of asexual reproduction in plants. It is a process by which new organisms arise without production of seeds or spores and it can occur naturally or be induced by horticulturists. Although most plants normally reproduce sexually, many have the ability for vegetative propagation and this is because meristematic cells capable of cellular differentiation are present in many plant tissues. Horticulturalists are interested in understanding how meristematic cells can be induced to reproduce an entire plant, success rates and difficulty of propagation vary greatly. For example, willow and coleus can be propagated merely by inserting a stem in water or moist soil, on the other hand, monocotyledons, unlike dicotyledons, typically lack a vascular cambium and therefore are harder to propagate. In a wide sense, methods of propagation include cutting, vegetative apomixis, layering, division, budding, grafting. Cutting exploits the ability of plants to grow adventitious roots under certain conditions, vegetative propagation is usually considered a cloning method. However, there are cases where vegetatively propagated plants are not genetically identical. Root cuttings of thornless blackberries will revert to type because the adventitious shoot develops from a cell that is genetically thorny. Thornless blackberry is a chimera, with the epidermal layers genetically thornless, similarly, leaf cutting propagation of certain chimeral variegated plants, such as snake plant, will produce mainly nonvariegated plants. Grafting is often not a complete cloning method because seedlings are used as rootstocks, in that case only the top of the plant is clonal. In some crops, particularly apples, the rootstocks are vegetatively propagated so the entire graft can be if the scion. Apomixis is a type of reproduction that does not involve fertilisation, in flowering plants, unfertilized seeds are involved, or plantlets that grow instead of flowers. Hawkweed, dandelion, some citrus and many such as Kentucky blue grass all use this form of asexual reproduction. Bulbils are sometimes formed instead of the flowers of garlic, virtually all types of shoots and roots are capable of vegetative propagation, including stems, basal shoots, tubers, rhizomes, stolons, corms, bulbs, and buds. In a few species, leaves are involved in vegetative reproduction, the rhizome is a modified underground stem serving as an organ of vegetative reproduction, e. g. Polypodium, iris, couch grass and nettles, prostrate aerial stems, called runners or stolons are important vegetative reproduction organs in some species, such as the strawberry, numerous grasses, and some ferns. Adventitious buds form on roots near the surface, on damaged stems
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Plant reproductive morphology
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Plant reproductive morphology is the study of the physical form and structure of those parts of plants directly or indirectly concerned with sexual reproduction. Among all living organisms, flowers, which are the structures of angiosperms, are the most varied physically. Plants that are not flowering plants also have complex interplays between morphological adaptation and environmental factors in their sexual reproduction, christian Konrad Sprengel studied the reproduction of flowering plants and for the first time it was understood that the pollination process involved both biotic and abiotic interactions. Charles Darwins theories of natural selection utilized this work to build his theory of evolution, Plants have complex lifecycles involving alternation of generations. One generation, the sporophyte, gives rise to the next generation asexually via spores, spores may be identical isospores or come in different sizes, but strictly speaking, spores and sporophytes are neither male nor female because they do not produce gametes. The alternate generation, the gametophyte, produces gametes, eggs and/or sperm, a gametophyte can be be monoicous, producing both eggs and sperm or dioicous, either female or male. In the bryophytes, the gametophyte is the dominant generation. In ferns and seed plants the sporophyte is the dominant generation, the obvious visible plant, whether a small herb or a large tree, is the sporophyte, and the gametophyte is very small. In seed plants, each female gametophyte, and the spore that gives rise to it, is hidden within the sporophyte and is dependent on it for nutrition. Each male gametophyte consists of from two to four cells enclosed within the protective wall of a pollen grain. The sporophyte of a plant is often described using sexual terms based on the sexuality of the gametophyte it gives rise to. For example, a sporophyte that produces spores that give rise only to male gametophytes may be described as male, even though the sporophyte itself is asexual, producing only spores. Similarly, flowers produced by the sporophyte may be described as unisexual or bisexual, the flower is the characteristic structure concerned with sexual reproduction in flowering plants. Flowers vary enormously in their construction, a complete flower, like that of Ranunculus glaberrimus shown in the figure, has a calyx of outer sepals and a corolla of inner petals. The sepals and petals form the perianth. Next inwards there are numerous stamens, which produce pollen grains, stamens may be called the male parts of a flower and collectively form the androecium. Finally in the middle there are carpels, which at maturity one or more ovules. Carpels may be called the parts of a flower and collectively form the gynoecium
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Dioecy
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Dioecy is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct male and female individual organisms or colonies, meaning that a colony contains only either male or female individuals. Dioecy is one method that excludes self-fertilization and promotes allogamy, flowering plants have several other methods of excluding self-fertilization, called Self-incompatibility. In zoology, dioecious species may be opposed to hermaphroditic species, meaning that an individual is of one sex. Dioecy may also describe colonies, such as the colonies of Siphonophorae, Dioecious colonies contain members of only one sex, whereas monoecious colonies contain members of both sexes. Dioecious species have the male and female structures on separate plants. The meaning of male and female in the context of plants is different from that used in animal groups and this issue is discussed below in the Alternation of generations section. About 6 percent of species are entirely dioecious and about 7% of angiosperm genera contain some dioecious species. Examples of dioecious plant species include ginkgos, willows, cannabis, more examples of dioecious plants can be found in the Wikipedia category, Dioecious plants. Dioecy occurs in a variety of plant families. However it is common in woody plants and heterotrophic species. There are several alternatives to dioecy for sexual reproductive structure organization in plants including bisexual flowers and these are described at Plant reproductive morphology. Land plants have alternation of generations, for which the sporophyte produces spores rather than gametes. Strictly speaking, the sporophytes of plants do not have either male or female reproductive organs. The gametophytes of flowering plants are of a sex, the male gametophytes are contained within the pollen. The sporophyte generation is called dioecious when each sporophyte has only one kind of spore-producing organ whose spores ultimately give rise to all male gametes or all female gametes. Slightly different terms, dioicous and monoicous, may be used for the gametophyte generation, the definition avoids reference to male and female reproductive structures, which are rare in fungi. An individual of a fungal species not only requires a partner for mating. A monoecious fungal species can perform roles, but may not be self-compatible
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Drupe
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In botany, a drupe is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits usually develop from a carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries. Other fleshy fruits may have an enclosure that comes from the seed coat surrounding the seed. The term drupaceous is applied to a fruit which has the structure and texture of a drupe, the boundary between a drupe and a berry is not always clear. Thus some sources describe the fruit of species of the genus Persea, one definition of berry requires the endocarp to be less than 2 mm thick, other fruits with a stony endocarp being drupes. In marginal cases, terms such as drupaceous or drupe-like may be used, the term stone fruit can be a synonym for drupe or, more typically, it can mean just the fruit of the genus Prunus. Freestone refers to a drupe having a stone which can be removed from the flesh with ease, the flesh is not attached to the stone and does not need to be cut to free the stone. Freestone varieties of fruits are preferred for uses that require removal of the stone. Freestone plums are preferred for making homegrown prunes, and freestone sour cherries are preferred for making pies, clingstone refers to a drupe having a stone which cannot easily be removed from the flesh. The flesh is attached strongly to the stone and must be cut to free the stone, clingstone varieties of fruits in the genus Prunus are preferred as table fruit and for jams, because the flesh of clingstone fruits tends to be more tender and juicy throughout. Tryma is a term for such nut-like drupes that are difficult to categorize. Hickory nuts and walnuts in the Juglandaceae family grow within a husk, these fruits are technically drupes or drupaceous nuts. Many drupes, with their sweet, fleshy outer layer, attract the attention of animals as a food, and the plant population benefits from the resulting dispersal of its seeds. The endocarp is sometimes dropped after the part is eaten, but is often swallowed, passing through the digestive tract. This passage through the tract can reduce the thickness of the endocarp. The process is known as scarification, typical drupes include apricots, olives, peaches, plums, cherries, mangoes and amlas. The coconut is also a drupe, but the mesocarp is fibrous or dry, so this type of fruit is classified as a simple dry, unlike other drupes, the coconut seed is unlikely to be dispersed by being swallowed by fauna, due to its large size. It can, however, float extremely long distances across oceans, bramble fruits are aggregates of drupelets
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Seed dispersal
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Seed dispersal is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have very limited mobility and consequently rely upon a variety of vectors to transport their propagules. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, there are five main modes of seed dispersal, gravity, wind, ballistic, water, and by animals. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus, seed dispersal is likely to have several benefits for plant species. First, seed survival is often away from the parent plant. This higher survival may result from the actions of density-dependent seed and seedling predators and pathogens, competition with adult plants may also be lower when seeds are transported away from their parent. Seed dispersal also allows plants to reach specific habitats that are favorable for survival, for example, Ocotea endresiana is a tree species from Latin America which is dispersed by several species of birds, including the three-wattled bellbird. In the case of fleshy-fruited plants, seed-dispersal in animal guts often enhances the amount, the speed, and the asynchrony of germination, seeds dispersed by ants are not only dispersed short distances but are also buried underground by the ants. These seeds can thus avoid adverse effects such as fire or drought, reach nutrient-rich microsites. These features are peculiar to myrmecochory, which may provide additional benefits not present in other dispersal modes. Finally, at scale, seed dispersal may allow plants to colonize vacant habitats. In fact, recent evidence suggests that the majority of seed dispersal events involves more than one dispersal phase, seed dispersal is sometimes split into autochory and allochory. Autochorous plants disperse their seed without any help from an external vector, two other types of autochory not described in detail here are blastochory, where the stem of the plant crawls along the ground to deposit its seed far from the base of the plant, and herpochory. Barochory or the plant use of gravity for dispersal is a means of achieving seed dispersal. The effect of gravity on heavier fruits causes them to fall from the plant when ripe, fruits exhibiting this type of dispersal include apples, coconuts and passionfruit and those with harder shells. Gravity dispersal also allows for transmission by water or animal. Ballochory is a type of dispersal where the seed is ejected by explosive dehiscence of the fruit. Often the force that generates the results from turgor pressure within the fruit or due to internal tensions within the fruit
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Perrot State Park
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Perrot State Park is a state park in Wisconsins Driftless Area at the confluence of the Trempealeau and Mississippi rivers. The 1, 270-acre park features views of steep limestone bluffs. It offers observation platforms for watching wildlife, especially the variety of birds which inhabit or migrate through the park. Hiking trails and camping are available, Mountain bike trails penetrate deep inside the park. The park protects two State Natural Areas including Bradys Bluff Prairie and Trempealeau Mountain, a mountain surrounded by water. The Native Americans of the area considered the mountain sacred and used it as a landmark for meetings. Some earthwork mounds made by ancient Native American cultures are located in the park and this facility protects the site of one of the earliest encampments by European explorers in the upper Mississippi. The park is named for Nicolas Perrot, a French explorer who was the first to write about the area
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Trempealeau County, Wisconsin
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Trempealeau County is a county located in the U. S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2010 census, the population was 28,816, patches of woodland are all that remain of the brush and light forest that once covered the county. In ancient times, the woodlands contained a great deal of timber and they did little cultivation and had been almost completely removed from the area by 1837. French fur traders were the first Europeans to enter this land, the name was later shortened to Trempealeau. Created in 1854 and organized in 1855, the county is named after the river. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 742 square miles. It is part of the Driftless Zone, the population density was 37 inhabitants per square mile. There were 11,482 housing units at a density of 16 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was 98. 81% White,0. 13% Black or African American,0. 17% Native American,0. 13% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 29% from other races, and 0. 47% from two or more races. 0. 89% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race,39. 0% were of Norwegian,24. 6% German and 17. 0% Polish ancestry according to Census 2000. 94. 9% spoke English,1. 6% Norwegian and 1. 6% Spanish as their first language,27. 60% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the family size was 3.00. In the county, the population was out with 25. 30% under the age of 18,6. 90% from 18 to 24,28. 20% from 25 to 44,23. 10% from 45 to 64. The median age was 38 years, for every 100 females there were 100.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.80 males, Trempealeau and the Mississippi River Dam. Gamroth, Clarence J. Historical Album,100 Years, Independence, Trempealeau County Trempealeau County map from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation Trempealeau County Health and Demographic Data
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Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
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The Maritimes
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The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,813,606 in 2016, the Maritimes, along with a fourth province – Canadas easternmost province, Newfoundland and Labrador – make up Atlantic Canada. Located along the Atlantic coast, various aquatic sub-basins are located in the Maritimes, such as the Gulf of Maine, the region is located northeast of New England, southeast of Quebecs Gaspé Peninsula, and southwest of the island of Newfoundland. All three provinces are entirely south of the southernmost extremity of Western Canada, and are the provinces of Canada without large. The Mikmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people are indigenous to the Maritimes, while Acadian, the word maritime is an adjective that simply means of the sea, thus any land associated with the sea can be considered a maritime state or province. Nonetheless, the term Maritimes has historically been applied to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The Middle Period, starting 6,000 years ago, and this is also when what is called the Laurentian tradition started among Archaic Indians, existing First Nations peoples of the time. Evidence of Archaic Indian burial mounds and other ceremonial sites existing in the Saint John River valley has been uncovered, the primarily agrarian Maliseet Nation settled throughout the Saint John River and Allagash River valleys of present-day New Brunswick and Maine. The Passamaquoddy Nation inhabited the coastal regions of the present-day Bay of Fundy. The Maritimes were the area in Canada to be settled by Europeans. Both Giovanni Caboto and Giovanni da Verrazzano are reported to have sailed in or near Maritime waters during their voyages of discovery for England, several Portuguese explorers/cartographers have also documented various parts of the Maritimes, namely Diogo Homem. However, it was French explorer Jacques Cartier who made the first detailed reconnaissance of the region for a European power, and in so doing, claimed the region for the King of France. Champlain went on to fame as the founder of New Frances province of Canada which comprises much of the present-day lower St. Lawrence River valley in the province of Quebec. Most Acadian fishing activities were overshadowed by the comparatively enormous seasonal European fishing fleets based out of Newfoundland which took advantage of proximity to the Grand Banks. In 1613, Virginian raiders captured Port-Royal, and in 1621 Acadia was ceded to Scotlands Sir William Alexander who renamed it Nova Scotia. By 1632, Acadia was returned from Scotland to France under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, colonial administration by France throughout the history of Acadia was contemptuous at best. Frances priorities were in settling and strengthening its claim on New France and the exploration and settlement of interior North America, over 74 years there were six colonial wars, which involved continuous warfare between New England and Acadia. Throughout these wars, New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy, in the first war, King Williams War, natives from the Maritime region participated in numerous attacks with the French on the Acadia/ New England border in southern Maine
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Quebec
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Quebec is the second-most populous province of Canada and the only one to have a predominantly French-speaking population, with French as the sole provincial official language. Quebec is Canadas largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division and it also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Quebec is Canadas second-most populous province, after Ontario, most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital. Approximately half of Quebec residents live in the Greater Montreal Area, the Nord-du-Québec region, occupying the northern half of the province, is sparsely populated and inhabited primarily by Aboriginal peoples. Even in central Quebec at comparatively southerly latitudes winters are severe in inland areas, Quebec independence debates have played a large role in the politics of the province. Parti Québécois governments held referendums on sovereignty in 1980 and 1995, in 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a symbolic motion recognizing the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada. These many industries have all contributed to helping Quebec become an economically influential province within Canada, early variations in the spelling of the name included Québecq and Kébec. French explorer Samuel de Champlain chose the name Québec in 1608 for the colonial outpost he would use as the seat for the French colony of New France. The province is sometimes referred to as La belle province, the Province of Quebec was founded in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 after the Treaty of Paris formally transferred the French colony of Canada to Britain after the Seven Years War. The proclamation restricted the province to an area along the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, the Treaty of Versailles ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. After the Constitutional Act of 1791, the territory was divided between Lower Canada and Upper Canada, with each being granted an elected legislative assembly, in 1840, these become Canada East and Canada West after the British Parliament unified Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada. This territory was redivided into the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario at Confederation in 1867, each became one of the first four provinces. In 1898, the Canadian Parliament passed the first Quebec Boundary Extension Act that expanded the provincial boundaries northward to include the lands of the aboriginal peoples. This was followed by the addition of the District of Ungava through the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912 that added the northernmost lands of the Inuit to create the modern Province of Quebec. In 1927, the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador was established by the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Located in the part of Canada, and part of Central Canada. Its topography is very different from one region to another due to the composition of the ground, the climate. The Saint Lawrence Lowland and the Canadian Shield are the two main regions, and are radically different
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Manitoba
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Manitoba is a province at the longitudinal centre of Canada. It is one of the three provinces and Canadas fifth-most populous province with its estimated 1.3 million people. Manitoba covers 649,950 square kilometres with a varied landscape. Aboriginal peoples have inhabited what is now Manitoba for thousands of years, in the late 17th century, fur traders arrived in the area when it was part of Ruperts Land and owned by the Hudsons Bay Company. In 1869, negotiations for the creation of the province of Manitoba led to an uprising of the Métis people against the Government of Canada. The rebellions resolution led to the Parliament of Canada passing the Manitoba Act in 1870 that created the province, Manitobas capital and largest city, Winnipeg, is Canadas eighth-largest census metropolitan area. Winnipeg is the seat of government, home to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, four of the provinces five universities and all four of its professional sports teams are in Winnipeg. The name Manitoba is believed to be derived from the Cree, the name derives from Cree manitou-wapow or Ojibwa manidoobaa, both meaning straits of Manitou, the Great Spirit, a place referring to what are now called The Narrows in the centre of Lake Manitoba. It may also be from the Assiniboine for Lake of the Prairie, the lake was known to French explorers as Lac des Prairies. Thomas Spence chose the name to refer to a new republic he proposed for the south of the lake. Métis leader Louis Riel also chose the name, and it was accepted in Ottawa under the Manitoba Act of 1870 and it adjoins Hudson Bay to the northeast, and is the only prairie province to have a saltwater coastline. The Port of Churchill is Canadas only Arctic deep-water port and the shortest shipping route between North America and Asia, Lake Winnipeg is the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. Hudson Bay is the worlds second-largest bay, Manitoba is at the heart of the giant Hudson Bay watershed, once known as Ruperts Land. It was a area of the Hudsons Bay Company, with many rivers. The province has a saltwater coastline bordering Hudson Bay and more than 110,000 lakes, Manitobas major lakes are Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipegosis, and Lake Winnipeg, the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. Some traditional Native lands and boreal forest on Lake Winnipegs east side are a proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site. Manitoba is at the centre of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, with a volume of the water draining into Lake Winnipeg. This basins rivers reach far west to the mountains, far south into the United States, major watercourses include the Red, Assiniboine, Nelson, Winnipeg, Hayes, Whiteshell and Churchill rivers
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Rocky Mountains
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The Rocky Mountains, commonly known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks, at the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, the Rocky Mountains are commonly defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The United States definition of the Rockies includes the Cabinet and Salish Mountains of Idaho and their counterparts north of the Kootenai River, the Columbia Mountains, are considered a separate system in Canada, lying to the west of the huge Rocky Mountain Trench. This runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the bank of the Liard River. The Rockies vary in width from 70 to 300 miles, also west of the Rocky Mountain Trench, farther north and facing the Muskwa Range across the trench, are the Stikine Ranges and Omineca Mountains of the Interior Mountains system of British Columbia. A small area east of Prince George, British Columbia on the side of the Trench. In Canada geographers define three main groups of ranges, the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges and Muskwa Ranges, the Muskwa and Hart Ranges together comprise what is known as the Northern Rockies. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these sub-ranges from distinct ranges further to the west, most prominent among which are the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range and Coast Mountains. The Rocky Mountain System within the United States is a United States physiographic region, the Rocky Mountains are notable for containing the highest peaks in central North America. The ranges highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level, Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 12,972 feet, is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains, triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park is so named because water that falls on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific, but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, see Rivers of the Rocky Mountains for a list of rivers. Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer, however, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The 40-year statewide increases in range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah
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Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
